AETHER BEASTS

It was raining the next day, almost as if the weather had matched my mood of melancholy as we prepared to leave. I was subdued and quiet through breakfast and was the last to say goodbye. Each of the ladies hugged my aunt and spoke in hushed tones, about what? I had no clue and perhaps at another time I might have been more curious but at the moment I was feeling slightly depressed and my thoughts were elsewhere

I gave my aunt a tight hug when it came time to say goodbye.

"Thank you." My voice was shaky but I didn't care. "For everything."

"Your welcome, Aiden," She said warmly. "And thank you for not forgetting about me."

"Never," I muttered. "Aunt or not, you've been more of a mother to me than anyone else."

Whatever happened in the great scar and whatever reason my blood mother had, Aunt Jenna would never stop being my closest family. She raised me when she didn't have to and had treated me like her son. I'd never said it before, but we both knew.

When I pulled back I saw that a tear was trailing its way down her cheek. "Promise you'll come back?"

I smiled. "Promise."

I made my way out of the house, my footsteps heavy and the sound of the front door closing behind me was quiet but It felt like a bang and I turned back one last time to gaze at the place I'd called home for so long.

It was early morning so there weren't many people out and about so we left with no fanfare or stops, making our way out of the town and down the road, towards our next destination.

"You ok?" Misty asked as we walked, the town long out of sight.

I nodded. "I'm good, sad, but it'll pass, especially when we get back into our usual rhythm."

"Speaking of our usual rhythm." Zirnai turned to address all of us. "We'll be finishing up our foundation training on our way to Bullrock."

"So we are heading there then?" Sandra asked.

"We have enough time," Zirani answered. "And it should be a good learning experience, and who knows what we might find down there. I've only ever entered an aether labyrinth a few times in all my years. Most arcanists tend to stay away from them."

"Why?" I questioned. I knew they were dangerous but I'd also heard of many stories of great riches and power found in them. The reward sounded like a fair pay off for the risk, not to mention that the escape pillars meant getting stuck or trapped wasn't really a worry.

"As I said before, they are unpredictable and don't have a pattern like at her towers," Zirani explained. "Sure most of the time it's not too dangerous too, but all it takes is one bad dive and it's over. They're more akin to the great scar, a mesh of different landscapes, or pieces of worlds if scholars are to believed."

She shook her head. "You have to go deep to find such things though. Most only come across stretches of empty land with the occasional beast or odd trinket."

"And we'll be fine?" I asked. Escape pillars were not foolproof and time was needed to teleport back to the one you'd attuned to, not to mention a decent amount of aether.

"Don't you worry about that?" Zirani smiled. "Even without the escape pillars I heard they have here, I have ways of getting us out in case of an emergency."

Escape pillars were the reason why people were able to venture into the labyrinths at all. They were similar to the pillars in aether towers that allowed for transport out and through the tower floors, except an escape pillar's main purpose was to get someone out and back to safety. All one had to do was attune to the pillar, which basically meant feeding some aether into it, and if they ever got lost they would be able to expend some aether to teleport back to the pillar. At least that's what I'd been taught at the academy. They weren't devices we'd built, certainly not arcanists in the plains at least, they'd all been discovered near the labyrinths, most likely having been put there long ago, though no one knew by who.

We continued on for a few more hours until Zirani was sure that we were far from the town. Her plan was to teach us the basics of changing aether and finally some advanced techniques, something I'd been looking forward to for a while. I liked the techniques I had at my disposal, but they felt lacking for someone at my stage, and in recent fights had shown, that while against lower-level arcanist and those at my level, they were fine, against higher-level threats where more power was needed, they just didn't cut it.

"All right we can walk and training," Zirani said. We all turned our attention to her as aether began to appear in her hand. She made no discernable motions or actions, but something within the aether shifted, and then suddenly it had formed into a pattern so fast if you blinked you'd have missed it. The aether turned into a pinkish gas, which floated up and quickly spread through the air.

"Is that perfume?" Misty asked incredulously.

"Just an example of a transformation," Zirani said. "It's better this than a poison that will rot your flesh off."

It had to be the sweetest thing I'd ever smelled and was very overpowering, to say the least. It seemed to push away any other scent, and directly hit my nose. Lilacs, roses, honey, cinnamon, and something else I couldn't identify. It was an odd blend, but definitely better than poison.

"The key to changing your aether is the forming of specific patterns that affect the shell of your aether directly," Zirani explained. "The pattern you just saw me use was a mix of a few, including a few whole origin patterns rather than just pieces. You saw how the pattern seemed to form in an instant, well that's because of the shell. When you use a normal technique, you simply from your aether into a pattern then release. With this, you need to form the pattern via just the shell which is the hardest part of this. Once you get the hang of that the rest won't be as difficult, but being able to mold the shell without the ki moving or doing anything is a hard and dangerous task, especially when you're trying a more dangerous transformation. I'm going to teach you a few basic exercises to try with your aether. Once each of you is able to do the exercise near-perfectly then we can move on."

We were all eager to learn, but it felt rather deflating when she finally showed us the exercise. They all involved trying to do minor changes to the shell of one's aether and attempting to sense the shell and ki, and mentally separate them. It was clear that it was meant to prepare someone for the real practice and though I knew it to be true, it was still rather boring. Even so, I tried my hardest.

I'd been avoiding looking at my inner self, and my core, simply because as of lately my focus always flicked to the other core I now held, the core she resided in. I pushed those thoughts away as best I could and practiced as hard as I could, not letting her cause me any more problems than she already had.

We traveled for hours and well into the night, not seeing much of a reason to sleep. None of us were particularly tired and I knew there was also another reason for Sandra. Zirani had half-heartedly lamented the loss of the baths and strength enhancement, which had made Sandra eager to not let us stop as to not give her a chance to resolve that problem. I didn't care either way because knowing Zinrai, she probably had something planned so we could catch up on all that lost time. I also didn't think the pain it could cause would ever bother me again, not after everything I'd been through.

I winced internally as a wave of memories washed through my mind, and Zirani glanced over with a sympathetic look in her eyes.

"Phantom pains?"

I nodded in repose to her mental question. She'd explained it was likely due to the direct attack on my soul, and that it would take time to heal the mental scars. The soul was linked to mind and body in an irrevocable way, and the fastest way to cause lasting damage to a person or beast was to attack the soul. Luckily Zirani had said my soul had no actually scars or injures. Apparently, even beyond the great scar, soul damage was not an easy fix. She explained there was always the inherent risk that more damage would be caused or a mistake made which could lead to memory loss, loss of function in certain parts of the body, and more. Zirani told me of a time she'd encountered a man who'd had an array carved on his back that numbed all his pain, because his soul had been partially stitched back together, and not in a clean way. He could function like a normal person, but every action was painful.

Just imaging having to live with that pain for every waking moment made me shudder. Thank heavens for my bloodline.. Without it, well I didn't want to imagine where I'd be now without it.